


Rise, be Mine

by SolarisRasa



Series: Sol's Malec Whumptober 2020 [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angel!Alec, Blood, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Vows, Whumptober 2020, Winged Alec Lightwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26852056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarisRasa/pseuds/SolarisRasa
Summary: Number 3: Forced to their kneesAlexander, angel of Justice swore himself to Raziel's service millennia ago. As that bond weakens a new one calls.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Sol's Malec Whumptober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953454
Comments: 6
Kudos: 137





	Rise, be Mine

**Author's Note:**

> *snorts* late and utterly ran away with me. Nice.
> 
> Day 3: Forced to their knees

Magnus, resplendent in the dress of his station, doesn’t understand why he’s been called. The pomp and circumstance of the Heavenly Host is hardly new but they usually have the courtesy to explain why they need a liaison from Edom to oversee a preceding. He admires himself in the highly polished floor, ignoring whatever Imogen is trying to berate him for currently.

He’s chosen thigh high suede boots and shorts that begin just where they end so when he’s still he looks dressed but skin flashes with every move. Paired with a silk and suede red and gold blazer and chains that drip in varying lengths to the bottom of his ribs, he looks like the being of sin he is. The long cloak of shadow that flares behind him has the added benefit of wafting lust in his wake. Not that the angel’s notice. He so hopes Alexander see’s him on this visit.

He’s gently tapping at the outer edge of his  _ perfect  _ eyeliner when the doors open to the Host’s council room, allowing them entrance so they can get whatever this is done with. Magnus is fairly certain he was offered a full cycle’s visit so he’s hoping it’s quick and he may seek out his preferred companion among the angels.

Raziel sits in his place, his golden throne (because that’s what it is, whatever he says about it, Magnus knows his thrones) elevated just slightly to signify his presiding over the space.

Magnus takes his seat, in the narrow line up set aside for foreign emissary’s, lower than all but the seat of the accused. That signal block of unfinished stone is the only thing that isn’t gleaming and Magnus has never seen it occupied. The jagged edge of it looks nearly impossible to sit on and it’s so low to the ground he doesn’t understand the purpose of having it at all.

He’s just hitting his stride, really sprawling out and fluffing so the lust magic that he carries spreads, when he catches sight of Alexander’s parabatai.

Jace is a statue, eyes unmoving from Magnus. His face gives nothing away but Magnus has spent enough time with him, unguarded and at ease in the realm of mortals, Alexander easing the friction between them and Isabelle’s warm spirit turning it to real friendship, to see. Jace is in torment.

Magnus does nothing to give away his sudden attention, just lazily scans the room. Fear tightens its grip when he realizes that the rest of Alexander’s family is already there, Maryse and Robert standing together for the first time in centuries. Isabelle joins Jace, takes his hand, and Magnus can see the white of her knucklebones.

Alexander is nowhere.

Raziel breaks the silence, angel’s do not chatter in his presence, when the last of the Host is seated.

_ I charge Alexander brought to knee before the assembled. _

The voice of the archangel echoes in Magnus’ head as his yellow eyes widen. The fear coats the back of his throat, fills his lungs. What is happening?

Another set of doors open and two angels come through, forcing a third who is blindfolded, his dark wings weighed down with chains. He is naked, his runes are faded, nearly gone, excepting the dark line of his parabatai rune on his hip. The matching bruise that Magnus left on their most recent encounter is yellowing on the other.

He is forced to his knees and Magnus gains an intimate understanding of the seat of the accused. It is not a chair. The rough stone, the jagged top, is where Alexander is made to place his knees, his weight unevenly balanced so the stone breaks his skin in places. If he shifts, and he does as he tries to orient himself without sight, it makes it worse. The white stone smears with red.

_ I charge all of the gathered to hear well. I have allowed you much, more than our father ever meant, but some few seek still more. Alexander, you have been loyal, you wield Justice and bring wrath to those deserving, peace to those wronged, for your unwavering dedication to your duty I have granted you this mercy. I will not cast you away.  _

_ For your betrayal of us, your affections for our Enemy and your refusal to purge yourself of the sins of your desire I charge you, Alexander, Principal of Justice, Divine retributioner to renew, before the Host and those to whom it is deemed necessary, your vow.  _

Magnus wasn’t born when the first vow to Raziel was sworn, when he was charged as overseer to all others and they knelt before him and vowed to follow and uphold. He wasn’t born when Alexander was given his duty, when the schism cast those who refused to follow Raziel and the Host from Heaven. It was a mimicry of the first, when Lucifer and his followers were cast to hell but Raziel had less mercy than his father and those who disobeyed him were stripped of their very selfs, left to wander the mortal realm and eventually, slowly, die. 

Alexander had spoken, softly and with much pain, of a younger brother who was guitless but who Raziel had cast out for the merest suggestion of disobedience. 

Magnus had been aware that his relationship with Alexander was not kindly thought of by the Host, but he hadn’t known just how deep the consequences of loving him would be. 

Looking at him now, blindfold torn off and leaving him blinking in the spill of holy, unmerciful light from Raziel, knees spilling blood onto the pristine floor, Magnus wishes he’d learned the first lesson his father tried to teach. Beings like them were not meant to love and it would bring them ruin.

Alexander doesn’t speak, just stares up at Raziel in silence. It settles, thick and cloying.

Magnus is used to the impatience of demons, he forgets how the Host can be. They stay for so long he’s certain that everyone is stone, the faces of the angels around him, their wings held in perfect stillness, folded neatly. Raziel’s wings are flared wide, the triple set of them golden and Magnus can almost see his true celestial form with its many faces.

He is not made for this, he comes from Edom, he has the blood of a fallen angel but he was never one. He shifts, his cloak drags over the floor with his motion, just a whisper. 

Alexander looks away from Raziel and Magnus sucks in a breath. For the first time he can  _ see  _ some of what Alexander is. His eyes hold galaxies and the lines of his face shiver, Magnus is almost certain that if he had been born an angel he would be able to read the meanings in it.

“I will swear.”

Magnus feels his heart shatter at Alexander’s bloodied knees. The vow had not been spoken for millennia, it’s power had weakened, shifted, until it allowed the angel’s who swore it to  _ feel  _ things again, to be more than just extensions of Raziel. To renew it would return Alexander to what he had been, once.

He’d whispered to Magnus, in the cradle of comfort that Edom had become on his rare visits, that he would rather die than become that unfeeling, blank thing again. He remembered killing without thought, sitting for years at a time, like a thing put up on a shelf, only to be brought to movement for Raziel’s purposes. When his brother was cast down, he had been the one to remove his wings and felt  _ nothing.  _

_ I will hear it. _

Alexander does not look away from Magnus, “I will swear no vow to you, Raziel. That time is done.”

_ There is no other vow that will appease. _

Magnus wanted to see Raziel, to see him ruffled, but he was falling into the world’s that lived inside of Alexander.

“Malphas, son of Asmodeus, ruler of the Edomei, will you hear me?”

Magnus jerked at his official name, at the steadiness of Alexander’s voice.

“I will hear you.” He spoke, his voice compelled to answer even as he stood, his low seat putting him close enough to Alexander he needed only take a few steps. The hem of his shadow cape dragged through angel blood and he felt the power it gifted him.

_ You cannot- _

Raziel fell silent as Magnus lifted his hand. The rings glimmered in the blue firelight of his birthright. His father had managed to teach him one thing, never show your hand until it is warranted. The Host didn’t need to know that decades of sharing himself with Alexander had left them both markedly stronger. 

Magnus had already been a power and with the blood of  _ his  _ angel soaking into his clothing and his soul even Raziel could not stand alone against him.

Alexander didn’t even blink and Magnus thought all that he was would break on the thorn of this angel’s love.

The vow that Alexander spoke transcended language, wound tight around Magnus and carved out the very essence of who Alexander was, offered it up and Magnus took it. He was so enraptured, so deep in the magic of it that he almost missed the presence, alien and  _ more  _ than any of them that brushed over their bond.

It sang to life between them and Magnus felt reality reshaping, folding until only they existed and then opening again.

When he finished, blood pouring from his lips as the power stripped his throat raw and healed it again, Alexander no longer knelt. He stood and Magnus saw him truly and he wept under the million-eyed love he found looking back. 


End file.
